How to Plan for Elderly Parents' Care

As your parents enter their sunset years, you want to ensure that their
lives are as comfortable as possible--and you want to make sure you
aren't saddled with a burden you can't handle. Talk with your parents
about their plans and preferences, and ask what arrangements, if any,
they've made for their future care.

Instructions

1. Help your parents map out their future if they haven't already considered it. List options for varying levels of care that range from independent living arrangements to assisted living to nursing homes. Talk about where they'd prefer to live once they can no longer live alone.

2. Stay on top of the details. Create folders with your parents' pertinent medical, financial and legal information and contacts. See 289 Organize Medical Records.

3. Meet with your parents and their financial adviser. If they don't have one, hire one. Do they have adequate insurance and income to cover their future needs?

4. Review their trusts and/or wills with their lawyer. Are they current? Are they adequate? (See 244 Make a Will.) Ask your parents to sign durable powers of attorney (for health and finances) if they haven't already. This will allow you or someone else in the family to make life-and-death decisions for them if they become incapacitated. See 245 Execute a Power of Attorney.

5. Keep their environment safe. Install safety bars in the bathrooms and ramps and handrails around the house if needed.

6. Determine whether your parents need any help with bills or maintaining the house. Make regular checks of their accounts to make sure things are in order.

7. Look into services available for the elderly, ranging from Meals on Wheels to bus services, even medication reminder services.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are too busy or too far away, you can hire a geriatriccare specialist to help your parents with problems or paperwork.

• Find out where their important papers (such as home deeds, wills and powers of attorney) are located. Either store them with your new files, or know where they are so that when the time comes, you can find them easily. See 246 Plan Your Elderly Parents' Estate and 295 Make Your Final Arrangements.

• For more information, go to sites such as SeniorCitizens Bureau.com.

• Make sure you have the neighbors' phone numbers. Consider getting your folks a personal emergency response system so that help is a button-push away.